British Airways 100,000 Point Sign Up Bonus Ends on 7/17/2012

For all of you that signed up for this offer in 2010, Daraius at Million Mile Secrets says that his Wife signed up for the British Airways Card again and received the 100,000 point sign up bonus again even though she had the Card in the past.

Interestingly enough, I am running extremely low on British Airway Avios and am in dire need of a Credit Card that has Chip & Pin technology.

I think I am going to try and sign up again for the British Airways Card and hopefully get the sign on bonus again!

Top 10 Reasons Why I Love British Airways

Since we have so many new FFU Readers thanks to the SMD4 Seat Giveaway contest, iinstead of just recapping the British Airways offer, I thought I’d share my personal top 10 reasons why I love British Airways and their 100,000 Avios Point Sign Up Offer.

For those of you new to the site, hopefully this will give you some insight into why you should take advantage of this offer.

For those of you on the fence, hopefully this will encourage you to take the plunge. You will not regret it!

On my last trip alone, 15,000 British Airways Avios Points saved me over $1,300 on airfare!

And now the Top 10 Reasons Why I Love British Airways & their Credit Card…

10. Chip & Pin Technology

This probably doesn’t get anyone’s heart pumping but the British Airways Card is one of the few select U.S Credit Cards that offers Chip & Pin Technology, which allows you to easily use your Card anywhere in Europe. Anyone who has had their Card denied while traveling because it lacks this feature, knows how important of a benefit this is.

9. 10% Off British Airway Ticket Purchases

One of the great features about this Card is that British Airways gives you 10% off discount when you purchase British Airways Tickets with the Card. I don’t know if you have seen recent airfare prices, but for a family of 4 traveling to Europe, this could easily save you $400 on 1 trip.

This is definitely one of the most underrated features of the British Airways Avios Program. Basically it gives you the ability to combine all the points of your various “family members” into 1 single household account without having to pay any fees. If a husband, wife, and their 2 college aged kids signed up for the British Airways Card, they could get 400,000 Avios Points which they could pool together into 1 account.

If you are familiar with the Starwood’s Preferred Guest program, you know that they have a Cash & Points option, which means instead of paying 100% of your stay in Points, you can pay with half points and half cash.

This turns out to be an excellent value because for a couple thousand points and like $50 you can stay at a property that might normally cost $200 a night.

British Airways has a similar feature where you can pay for some of your trip in cash and save your points.

If you have 100,000+ Avios Points, then you probably would pass on this, but if you are like me and are low, every opportunity to save some Avios Points for future trips is helpful.

6. No Close-In Ticketing Fees

Many people don’t even know what close-in ticketing is, but if you have every tried to book an award ticket on United or American Airlines and it is less than 30 days out, you get hit with a “close-in” ticket fee.

Really I think it is just a money making scene, but because it is “so close” to the departure day, the Airlines will charge you anywhere from $50-$75 per a ticket. It is really annoying because it turns what was a free ticket into a unnecessary $50-$75 expense.

What is awesome about British Airways is that they don’t have these nonsense close in ticketing fees. That means that if you decided today that you wanted to go somewhere tomorrow, as long as there is availability, you can go book it for free without having to pay any additional close in ticketing fee.

While this feature may not be as exciting as some of the others, if you ever have an emergency and have to book a flight less than 30 days out, you will be thankful that British Airways does not have any of those silly fees.

5. One Way Tickets

While most Airlines allow one way award tickets, some Airlines like Delta and US Airways, don’t believe in that, so they will let you fly on a one way award ticket, but charge you for a round trip ticket.

Thankfully British Airways does allow one way tickets at half the price of a roundtrip ticket!

What is even better is that as you will see below, British Airways has a pretty awesome Award Chart, so a short distance one way flight can cost as little as 4,500 Points instead of the 25,000 Miles it might cost on Delta or US Airways!

4. Distance Based Award Chart

Last year when British Airways changed their Award Chart from a fixed chart to a distance based one, there was a lot of complaining on the Internet because it got rid of many awesome First and Business Class redemptions to Asia.

By changing the Award Chart to a distance based, essentially the closer your destination, the less Points it will cost.

While this is not very helpful for really far away places, if you are flying anywhere in the United States, this is actually really helpful as described below.

9/10 times because the British Airways Award Chart is distance based, it will cost you less than if you flew the same route using miles on United, Delta, or American.

3. Short Haul Flights

As stated above, British Airways operates on a distance based Award Chart, meaning the closer your destination, the less Points it will cost.

For example flying out of New York’s JFK Airport, it would only cost you the following amount of Points to visit any of the following cities:

Boston – 9,000 Avios

Washington, D.C – 9,000 Avios

Miami – 15,000 Avios

Chicago -15,000 Avios

Dallas -20,000 Avios

Las Vegas – 25,000 Avios

Seattle – 25,000 Avios

Vancouver – 25,000 Avios

Los Angeles – 25,000 Avios

If you flew any of these same exact routes on United, Delta, or American, you would be looking at anywhere from 20,000+ miles.

For the New York City – Boston route, United would charge you 25,000 miles for the 1.30 hour flight, where British Airways would only charge you 9,000 Points!

Depending on where you are going in the United States, at a minimum with this 100,000 Point Offer, you could get 4 free flights to L.A, while at a maximum, you could get over 10 free round trip flights to Boston! ALL FOR FREE!

2. You Can Use British Airway Points To Book Free Flights On American Airlines

The #1 question I get asked about the British Airways Card is why anyone who lives in the U.S would get this Card since British Airways doesn’t really fly in the U.S. The answer is that you can use British Airway Points to fly on American Airlines since they are a Partner!

This is huge because the American Airlines Credit Card only offers 35,000 Miles for signing up. With the British Airways Card, you get almost 3x as many Points, which means 3x as many free flights!

Tutorial on how to use British Airways Points to book free flights on American Airlines can be found here

1. 100,000 Avios Point Sign Up Bonus

From being an avid Miles / Points collector for the last 4 years, I can’t remember any other Frequent Flyer Credit Card that offered such a lucrative sign on bonus EVER.

Just to prove how many free flights 100,000 Avios Points can get you, using the 100,000 Avios points I received from my 2010 sign up, in the past 2 years I have gone to Montreal, Hawaii, New York, Miami, and San Francisco, ALL FOR FREE!

All in total those trips would have easily cost me over $3,000 had I paid out of pocket…..instead they were free!

Recap

Anyways, I hope that Top 10 list gave you some better insight into why the British Airways Avios Program is pretty awesome.

Again, I strongly suggest signing up for the British Airways 100,00 Avios Point Offer because when you combine all the useful features from above, the amount of money you will save will be easily in the thousands of dollars!